Doing Your Part in the Battle Against Spam

Awhile back, I read an article by another Internet marketer on ways to protect your email address from spammers (people who send out offensive or deceptive email in the hope of getting you to buy their products or services). There were some good ideas in the article, for example:

• use a separate free email account to submit your url to directories and link pages

• use another free email account to subscribe to ezines and newsgroups

• use yet another free email account to place classified ads in ezines

These suggestions have value. Not only regarding the issue of spam, but from a simple organizational standpoint. The principle is similar to using separate file folders or bins for each category of email. This makes sense and will make your email easier to manage.

However, I have to disagree with another point stressed throughout the article. The author repeatedly states that your offer should go to every single spammer who sends you an email. I beg to differ.

Sending spam - unsolicited email - to ANYONE, whether they have sent it to you first or not, is still spamming. This does not help us win the war on spam as this author states - it just intensifies the battle!

Common sense tells us that we will never be rid of spam completely. Just as we have junk mail delivered by the USPS to our home and business mailboxes every day, we will have junk email delivered to our email boxes as well. It's unavoidable.

Common sense also says that the quickest and easiest way to deal with spam is to deal with it exactly as you deal with junk mail delivered by the Post Office. Drop it in file 13. Trash it. Hit that little delete key and forget it. If you receive a politely stated offer to buy a product that you might reasonably be considered to have an interest in, it's not a mortal sin for someone to send that offer without asking your permission. It's unethical, yes. It is even illegal unless they follow set guidelines. But it's not the end of the world. So if you're not interested, just toss it in the garbage.

Now, before you go off the deep end, let me make one thing perfectly clear. I DO NOT and HAVE NEVER sent spam in my life, nor do I intend to. I don't like it, don't want it and don't respond to it. I report it when it's offensive, and try my best to discourage it in all my writing. But I also don't believe it's a cardinal offense.

If, however, rather than remain in the foxhole while the spam fight is raging, you want to get into the battle, there are at least two effective weapons you can use to wound the enemy.

1. If you really want someone to stop sending you spam, report them to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). They are the ones who regulate unsolicted email.

This is what I do routinely when I receive vulgar or pornographic email. I am very offended by this and do not hesitate to report the offender. To contact the FTC, forward the entire message (they need to know all the details contained in it) to spam@uce.gov.

The FTC uses the spam stored in their database to prosecute people who send deceptive email. You can learn more about this practice and about what the FTC is doing to combat the issue by visiting http://www.ftc.gov/spam/.

Think of it this way. If every single person who received spam from just one person forwarded that message to the FTC, the volume of increase in the FTC's email would be in the thousand's. They would be forced to do something - if only out of self-defense!

2. Don't buy from ANYONE who sends you spam.

I have to admit, sometimes I've looked at offers for products that came to me unannounced and thought them to be well-written and worthwhile. But I absolutely REFUSE to buy from someone who sends me unsolicited commercial email (UCE). It's the principle.

Spam is inappropriate. Period. The Internet community has made it perfectly clear that spam is not acceptable and there is no one who can pretend ignorance of that convention. Post to any newsgroup, take part in any discussion forum, or read any of the hundreds (or thousands) of free ezines on the Web, and you will know immediately that spam is unacceptable. Therefore, to continue to send UCE to people who have made it clear that the messages are not wanted, is rude and uncouth. We don't purchase from rude or uncouth salespeople who knock on our doors or call us on the phone, why should we do so if they send us email?

Using spam is a marketing technique. Is it certainly not a marketing strategy. What entrepreneur who truly hopes to succeed in business on the Web would use a strategy that enflames and irritates their prospective customers? It just doesn't make sense.

It's only when Internet users as a whole ignore spammers, report the abusive and offensive ones to the FTC and stop responding to UCE, will those who practice spamming stop annoying us with this rude behavior. And only then will we be able to claim victory in the war against spam.

Article copyright © 2005 by Darlene Bishop. All rights reserved worldwide.

Darlene "Dee" Bishop is a writer and creative designer with decades on online experience and the owner of Bishop's Corner, an online/catalog shop offering hundreds of quality gifts, home decor items, toys, housewares, furniture and more with nearly 1,000 products under $20. Visit her online store today at http://BishopsTN.com.

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